Traditional methods for hair coloring and lightening hair have been used for thousands of years, when materials such as henna, indigo, sage, and chamomile were used. In the Roman Empire, dark haired women who admired the blonde hair of female slaves lightened their own hair using saffron, red arsenic, nut shells, and plant ash. In the latter part of the Nineteenth Century synthetic dyes came into use for hair coloring, and hydrogen peroxide came into widespread use as a bleaching agent.
While it is relatively easy to change the color of a person's hair as a whole by dyeing or bleaching, the results of applying such a process uniformly to all of the hair are generally disappointing and difficult, with the hair acquiring an uninteresting non-uniform color. Conventional methods include measuring and mixing hair color or lightening with a developer in a mixing bowl or applicator bottle. The hair color or lightener is then applied to the hair with a tint brush or applidqto4 bottle. This method is messy when mixing and applying it to one's hair, resulting in unpredictable color results. It is also very difficult to store, transport and clean up hair coloring and lighteners. Therefore, such a process is generally followed by another step, in which selected portions of the hair are lightened, in a process known as streaking, or darkened, in a process known as reverse streaking.
The method most commonly used today for coloring selected portions of the hair is the foil method, in which the stylist isolates a strand of hair to lie along the upper surface of a sheet of foil having an edge held against the head near the roots of the strand of hair. The selected strand is then treated by the application of coloring material, being isolated from adjacent portions of the hair with the foil, and the foil is then folded around the strand to continue providing a barrier preventing migration of the coloring material to other parts of the hair during time necessary to provide the desired treatment.
One problem with the foil method arises from the cost of the large number of foil sheets that must be used to treat the hair of an individual and from the space required for their disposal or the costs of recycling the material. Foil makes up approximately fifty percent (50%) of color salon waste. The time required for the completion of the process is also disadvantageous in its effects on the cost of the process and on the discomfort of the individual whose hair is being treated. Furthermore, since the strands of hair being treated are covered by the foil, it is difficult for the stylist using this method to track the progress of the treatment, often resulting, for example, in the over bleaching of certain strands of hair being streaked.
Before the strands of hair can be pace d on individual foil panels and treated with coloring materials, the hair must be separated into strands. For example, this is done by weaving the hair using an ordinary rattail comb, having a comb section with ordinary teeth from which a pointed extension, or rattail, extends. The comb section is used to shape each strand, and the strands are individually placed to extend across alternating sides of the rattail, in a woven fashion.
Given the shortcomings with conventional methods for coloring and lightening hair, there exists a need for a device and method for coloring or lightening hair that provides predictable, uniform results, that does not require messy measuring and mixing bowls, eliminates the need for foil, is easy to clean up, dissolves with tap water, washes safely down the drain, and that is biodegradable and environmentally safe. It is, therefore, to the effective resolution of the aforementioned problems and shortcomings of the prior art that the present invention is directed. The instant invention addresses this unfulfilled need in the prior art by providing a device and method for coloring and lightening hair with dissolvable and biodegradable paper products as contemplated by the instant invention disclosed herein.